Chat Heads, a feature introduced with Facebook Home, is a pretty convenient way to communicate without breaking the experience you're in. Instead of jumping between apps when messaging, Chat Heads pop up and allow you to respond right over the whatever app you're in, allowing you to quickly get back to business.
A new concept from Paranoid Android called Halo, which takes Chat Heads to the extreme, is looking to change the entire mobile experience as we know it. Instead of confined to just messages, Halo is a tweak that handles notifications from any application in that familiar Chat Head UI.
No matter what application you're in, whatever notification streams into your device will pop up in a little Chat Head-like bubble. If it's from, say, Gmail, you can tap on the bubble, and a little mini Gmail window will overlay onto wherever you were on your phone. In the video example above, the user is playing Temple Run when a Gmail notification comes in; when he clicks on the bubble, the game pauses, and he's able to reply to and see his email in a window overlaid onto the game.
Right now, no expected completion date has been shared by Paranoid Android, but development is ongoing. Halo sounds promising, and the video ably demonstrates what users can expect when the tweak is released. Until then, check out the hands-on above, and we'll be sure to look out for any more announcements surrounding Paranoid Android's work.
